Back In Your Hometown
by jokermans
Summary: This takes place after the ending of Persona 5. A few months after Akira returned to his hometown, his classmates from his old school would slowly be less wary of him. Here's a story of a student (with no name mentioned), and his observation of Akira returning back to his hometown and Akira's eventual adaption back to his old life. A love interest also makes an appearance.


Author's Note: If you've wondered what life would be like for Akira when he got back to his hometown, this explains a little of what it was like adapting back. This is done from the perspective of a classmate of his in his hometown, chronicling his observations of him. It also has some romance from the girl I chose in the class 

It's already 5 months into our senior year in high school. I'm just an average guy, going through classes, and doing his best to fit in and be a normal person in society. As usual, in this little hometown of ours, the people here have quiet lives. It's not as exciting as living in a big city like Tokyo, but people have a different experience living in these peaceful areas. People think I'm envious of the busy city life, but I'm quite content living here. I'll probably visit the big cities in my spare time, but I'm always content to stay here in my hometown. However, every once in a while, some crazy action and juicy gossip happens in our small town. This concerns the returnee classmate of mine, Akira Kurusu,

Akira Kurusu seemed like a normal guy. He has unkempt curly hair, tall, wears glasses, has a medium built and as an outsider who's heard the gossip of the girls of our class, he is actually quite good looking. From what I recall, he used to be the quiet type. He also had excellent grades. However, he was the type to stand out in the class.

From how I've described him, you'd think he'd seems to be the type to not have any scandals related to him. Apparently, last year, from what the rumours told, he got into a scuffle with a big shot from the government. In fact, I'm not even sure if that was really the reason. It was all hush-hush! All I know is that, he was sent to the police station after an "incident", and next thing I hear is that he's expelled from our school, and was sentenced to a year of probation away from here. Apparently he transferred to a different school. It sounds crazy! People, left and right, were wondering what could have happened? Some people tried digging, but apparently, every time someone tried to learn more about the situation, they would get reprimanded for it by some government guys in suits. His parents were all so shocked from the situation, from what we've heard and no one wanted to interview them due to giving them the respect of their privacy.

The crazy atmosphere died down from the news after some time, and life continued. As time flew, a year past and his probation finished, and apparently, due to other reasons, he was "un-expelled" from our school! How did that happen?! Once again, people from the government came in, talked to the faculty. People from the school saw these events transpire btw. Before you know it, I see him as my classmate once again in class. Every one is dying to know what the heck happened to him, and why is he back in the school in the first place? What kind of scuffle happened to him? Why was the government involved?! This however, made his ostracization even worse. He didn't give off an aura of being a bad person. In fact, it seemed like he was more approachable than ever, compared from what I recall from my memories of him before his probation. It was just that everyone was afraid to approach him. They were worried of the crazy rumours surrounding him. He would always be at his little corner of the classroom, not talking to anyone at first really. He would have this gazing look outside the window, as if he was remembering a good memory or something. He'd look at his phone, read some messages, text back and be quiet. However, he would be looking content all over again in his corner. This continued on for the first 2 months of school.

Things changed after time. There would be several instances where he'd help out people who just dropped a stack of papers. He would help them pick them up. He'd also clean up the classroom without anyone asking, and answer questions in classes easily. Eventually, people tried talking to him about simple school stuff. They would ask him for help in their studies, and chit chat a little about school life. People were starting to warm up to him. Even I would ask Akira for some help here and there during classes. Nobody wanted to mention the elephant in the room about his time away though. We all wanted to wait until the right time before we inquired. Fast forward to where we are now, 5 months since the school year started and Akira seems to be slowly blending in.

High school life though tends to be similar wherever you are from. In every high school, relationships tend to be quite a hot topic. Like I mentioned earlier, Akira was actually a good looking guy. He proved himself to be a good person, with good grades. This proved to be quite attractive to a lot of girls in our batch. In fact, that mysterious "persona" of his, added to his charm. Girls would often say when he was not around, "I wonder if he has a girlfriend?" "Isn't he actually a bad boy? I love those kinds of cool mysterious guys!" People were curious, and before long, girls would start pronouncing their affection for him. Some would flirt with him slowly, and there were full blown confessions done to him. What a lucky guy, my friends and I thought. However, for some reason, he would respectably reject these confessions. Some of the girls who confessed were also quite the lookers too. There were several broken hearts, but it didn't stop the curiosity and the affection Akira already had from a lot of the students from our school.

I decided to talk to him one day about the mystery behind him. He was sitting quietly by his desk, and it looked like he was doing the latest assignment given. After the initial greets, and questions on the assignment, I straight up asked him:

"Akira, may I ask, what were you doing during your year away? What happened to you? Why did you leave?…You can answer with what you feel is comfortable for you. You don't need to give all the details, it's just that were curious, that's all."

He then gave me this look, he smiled, looked up like he was thinking on what to say next, looked again at me and said:

"Well. To be honest, a lot. First thing is… let's just say I had a misunderstanding with a person, which led me to being away for a year. I tried…helping out a person…it led to some problems, but after some resolving with the affected parties, everything was settled, and now I'm back here."

He smiles then and continues:

"I ended up in another school for a while, and even though I was dreading it and was very afraid, I ended up enjoying my year there. I'm sure I met and made some life long friends there."

"Oh. I also garnered a great love for coffee and curry." said Akira with a happy smirk.

Feeling a little dissatisfied with his answer due to the lack of details, I decided to not push further. I honestly wasn't that close to him. I could call him a friend, but nothing really "open your heart to you" kind of friendship. After analysing for a moment, I think to myself, actually I'm okay with what he said. I reply to him:

"Oh. Interesting… First off, I'll try some coffee and curry together some time, and secondly, I'm glad that it seemed like you still had a good year away. Honestly dude, some people were worried you were having a hard time for your year away. Glad I can tell them otherwise."

Akira smiles and thanks me. I say my goodbyes and head out.

Coffee and curry, I wondered. Hmm…Maybe there's a place nearby which sells both? It was Friday, so I'm sure I'll have time this weekend to look for it.

Classes just ended, and as I was walking out towards the exit of campus, I noticed a little crowd of people crowding by the walls within the campus beside the gates of the school. I'm thinking to myself, what crazy gossip is happening now in our small town? A friend of mine pulls me to the side and says:

"Dude! Did you see her?! Did you?"

"Wait what? See who?" I asked.

"That girl! The one around the corner of the campus?! Outside!" said my friend in a hushed and urgent tone.

"Is that why everyone is trying to be sneaky, and hiding along the wall so you can all try to spy on her?" I said.

"But dude! This girl is different! She's gorgeous! She looks like a foreigner!" said my friend.

Curious on who it might be, I decide to play it cool and pretend to go out of the campus gates. As I leave the gates, and make a left, I see a bit further down the road on the next corner, the girl he was referring to. He was right. She's gorgeous. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and had a great slim and curvy figure. She was quite fashionable too. The red in her clothes seemed to match her well. However, I notice that she seems to be waiting for something, or possibly someone? She was looking at her phone, and in between for some reason, was looking towards our school? Is it possible that she knows someone from our school? Maybe a boyfriend? That would have been juicy news. I try to avoid her look, and make it appear I forgot something back in class, by checking the contents of my backpack. As I walk back towards my friend, he pesters me again about her.

"Dude. Am I right?! She's drop dead gorgeous!" "Who is she?" said my friend.

I told him what I observed by saying that she seemed to be waiting for someone here in school which some of the others trying to peek at her, noticed as well. Eventually, someone shed a light on the mystery. One of the girls from our class said to us:

"Guys! She's a model! Look! Ann Takamaki. She's here in my fashion magazine!"

As we swarmed to see the picture, there it was. Photographic evidence. We had a model outside our campus, waiting for someone here. Some people google her on their phones and see that she's based in Tokyo.

I think to myself, maybe there are perks in living in Tokyo. As we continue to gossip about the appearance of this beautiful girl outside our school, everybody gets another shock when a guy in a hushed down voice informs the small crowd that she was heading towards the entrance of our school.

Everybody scatters like flies, trying to look natural, pretending to be talking, or actually heading out of the school, just to avoid getting caught looking at her. I'm one of the people still in school, curious on where this leads. It escalates even further when she finally reaches the gate, and the person she's been waiting for appears.

It's none other than Akira Kurusu. He approaches her, and we can see that both parties are delighted beyond words to see each other. He drops his bag, they run towards each other, and they grab each other in a huge embrace. A lot of people were dumbstruck with what was transpiring outside the school. Akira and Ann were both laughing and tearing up a little from the joy of seeing each other. Most of us put two and two together and pieced that, they were dating. From what I can hear, it seemed that Ann's school had a faculty day, so classes were canceled ahead of time for them, so that students could take the day off. She must have planned this as a surprise because it seemed like Akira had no clue she was coming.

He was happier than any of us had ever seen him. A lot of the girls started sighing about the loss of Akira from the market, and a lot of the guys' dreams started shattering about the new model who just appeared out of nowhere. They started walking away towards the direction of Akira's house while holding hands with each other. I along with my friends started to move, and decided to head home as well. However, after that incident, Akira once again became the centre of attention for the school. No longer was he the delinquent, but now he was the mysterious, charming guy on campus, who happened to be dating a beauty. Akira was bombarded with tons of questions the next day of classes. From them on, he no longer was ostracised in school.


End file.
